Being Green

[Bosoxfan]

**Being*Green*Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in its day.*`Back then’, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling's. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.`Back then’, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.*But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.*But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.***We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to **** us off... especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

[Indydealmaker]

That cashier is also too young to remember that it was the Eco-Wackos that made us switch from paper bags to plastic. No way did we want to!

[Villageshooter]

i have a great life ,,, the world is a wonderful place,,, what was is what has made what is! i dont believe all this green whatever tree hugger stuff,, the generations before did not worry about my world an i will be darned if i am worry about putting old newspapers on the curb!
now turn up the a/c and enjoy a cold can of beer!

[LndLocked]

One of those nostalgic laments for the good old days, full of finger-wagging chastisement for ungrateful whippersnappers, popped up in my in-basket the other day.

This fable begins with a young cashier snippily telling an older woman she should bring her own grocery bags because the plastic ones aren’t good for the environment. The older woman replies with a crabby catalogue of how much greener the cashier’s elders were back when they “didn’t do the green thing.”

At risk of being declared a traitor to my (age) class, I thought I’d deconstruct it. So here are the self-congratulatory fable’s main points followed by the facts in italics:

1. A wise elder generation returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to be washed sterilized and refilled. Inference: irresponsible young people like our symbolic cashier hypocritically sacrificed sustainability for recycling by lazily embracing disposable plastic jugs and cardboard cartons while complaining about plastic bags.

Fact: Milk bottles were phased out by the same generation that in this case criticizes disposable containers. This began in 1964 as a public health measure amid mounting concerns over sanitation and the difficulty of mass sterilization of bottles by dairies. You can still have your milk delivered in a re-usable bottle today but it will cost you about twice the price of a disposable container. There is a movement calling for a return to refillable containers for milk and beverages. It is driven largely by young people — like the metaphorical cashier dissed in the fable.

2. Back then, groceries came in brown paper bags that were reused for numerous things including covers for schoolbooks. This ensured public property was not defaced with inane scribbling. Inference: Sanctimonious young people push reusable shopping bags when paper bags are already reusable. Kids with no respect for public property deface their school books whereas their responsible grandparents were careful to mark only the brown paper wrappings salvaged from grocery bags.

Fact: You can still get your groceries bagged in paper, even in stores where they make you pay for plastic and encourage sturdy reusable bags. Paper grocery bags were invented around 1870. The plastic grocery bag, on the other hand, was invented by the very generation for which this fable purports to speak. The plastic bag was introduced in 1950 – if you’re under 62 you weren’t even alive when that happened. But it was enthusiastically embraced by the same generation that conceived the baby boom and which now complains about Boomers and their plastic bags.

As for the defacement of school books: before me, as I write, are several from the 1920s that passed through the hands of at least three successive schoolgirls. The first, a text which from 1929 to 1933 belonged in sequence to Winnie, Hazel and Mildred Davey of Magee Secondary, is well illustrated with jokes, witty teenage notes, and even a charming drawing of a delighted young woman apparently about to be smooched by a handsome chap. Above is doodled “Ah! ‘Tis love!” Oh, those old devils, what they secretly got up to in the back row behind the brown paper wrappers!

3. We walked up stairs because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. Inference: Unlike those lazy, car-mad youngsters who won’t climb a flight of stairs, we preferred walking to driving.

Fact: The modern safety elevator was invented in 1857 and installed in a frenzy of market growth – 2,000 per cent by 1873 – primarily because it offered a solution to a huge problem. The elevator meant cities could grow vertically, increasing density and reducing the reliance on horse transportation. Turns out the good old days before the car were a fly-infested, disease-ridden urban nightmare of horse manure. In New York and London, horses defecated 622 million kilograms on the streets each year. Perhaps that’s why our grandparents, once the car had been invented, bought 115.8 million vehicles between 1931, when the U.S. population numbered 124 million, and 1967, when it was 198 million — and the first baby boomers were old enough to buy their own cars. That averages 1.6 cars bought for every new person joining the population over those years. Who went car crazy, again? Meanwhile, the elevator transformed the urban landscape as high rises replaced walk-ups and skyscrapers replaced high rises in the early 20th century. The escalator evolved from a turn of the 19th century amusement park ride and developed in tandem with the elevator, entering wide use starting in 1920. Seems the seniors couldn’t abandon the stairs fast enough.

4. Back then, we washed baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling dryer.

Fact: The first disposable diapers came to market in 1942. They went to mass market in 1948, coinciding — surprise! — with the first births of the baby boom. That young cashier’s grandmother’s generation embraced disposables in huge numbers. It’s the environmentally-concerned young women of today who champion reusable cloth diapers– although even among them, the jury is still out on whether the benefits of washables are as clearcut as enthusiasts argue.

The electric clothes dryer was invented in the early 20th-century by a farmer sick of wet clothes freezing on the line during prairie winters. His automated drum dryer went to market in 1938 and the rest, as they say, is history. By 1950, sales were 60,000 a year. Our cashier’s grandmothers thought the electric dryer an indispensable idea. This fable must have been written by a man.

5. Back then, we had one TV, not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. We used a push mower. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club.

Fact: That old 19-inch cathode ray tube TV with the awful, flickering, snowy, blue and grey picture used three times as much power as the thin LED models that provide stunning high definition images in full colour today. People today still don’t have a TV in every room. Canadians average 1.8 TV sets per household. The electric blender was first marketed in 1922 and by 1950 at least a million households in North America had one. The mixer preceded the blender. It was invented in 1908. It was so popular that even in the depths of the Great Depression, 300,000 units a year were sold by the leading mixer company. The gasoline-powered lawn mower was brought to market in 1921 and by 1950 more than a million a year were being sold. The history of the public gymnasium dates from ancient Greece but in North America, it first took off as a mass market phenomenon in 1947, just when people born in the 1922 were turning 25 and conceiving the baby boom.

6. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen and we replaced razor blades instead of tossing the razor.

Fact: Paper cups were introduced in 1907 in response to growing public health concerns about communicable diseases from public drinking sources. Consumption of commercial bottled water dates from the early 1800s. The first popular brands in the 19th century were Perrier, San Pellegrino and Evian. In Canada, commercially bottled water has been sold for a century. So it’s not our metaphorical young cashier’s generation that’s responsible for the rise of paper cups and bottled water and the decline of drinking fountains, it’s her great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents that are to blame. By the way, it’s young people who promote the sensible drinking of tap water and carrying it in refillable stainless steel bottles. As for refilling pens – the first patent on the non-refillable ballpoint was issued in 1888 but it didn’t reach the mass market until RAF aircrews discovered it worked better than fountain pens at high altitude. Ballpoints went to mass market in 1945 and quickly dominated. Fountain pens reinvented themselves as executive status symbols. As for razors, disposable blades displaced the reusable straight razor during the First World War when the safety razor was adopted by the U.S. army, which bought millions. The first electric razor was patented in 1928.

7. Back then people took the street car or a bus and rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

Fact: People used public transit less back in the day than they do now. In 1923, 12 per cent of public transit was by train; in 2010, it was 34 per cent. Four per cent took the bus in 1923; by 2010 it was 51.4 per cent. As for riding bicycles, the great cycling boom began in 1960. At its peak, sales topped 17 million units, most of which were to new cyclists. Today, it’s young people who predominate in riding to school and to work – and they are activists, demanding bicycle lanes and paths that make their commutes safer. It’s older drivers, who have no intention of abandoning their cars, who put up the biggest resistance – witness the bike lane wars in Vancouver.

8. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.

Fact: The mass electrification of society was launched with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1935 during the Great Depression. Within two years, 1.5 million homes had been electrified and by the 1950s virtually every household was on the grid. The average house size in which the grumpy 85-year-old seniors of this piece were raised by their own parents was 91.3 square metres; the average size of the house those kids bought or built for themselves between 1950 and 1970 grew to 139.5 square metres and they filled their new houses with new electrical appliances. The 1950s launched the era of the electric range, refrigerator, washing machine, TV sets, phonographs, electric mixers, coffee makers, and even the rare microwave oven. One outlet per room couldn’t handle that suite of appliances – and didn’t.

9. And, finally, we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

Fact: Despite protestations to the contrary, seniors have always taken an enthusiastic liking to “computerized gadgets” like the smart phone. In 2011, 483,600 seniors owned an iPad. Seniors spend an average of 33.7 hours per week online – that is 1.5 hours more than the average for young people aged 18-24. Furthermore, 52 per cent of people aged 50 or older use smart phones to get mobile information and 30 per cent use them to check the weather and — Oh my goodness! — find a local restaurant.

[mixsonci]

I love these, had a good chuckle for the day and great reminiscing (SP?) of days gone by, The Good Ole' Days, I remember them well (at least I can still remember them)

[billethkid]

when we look k at what we did or did not do as so appropriately presented in an above post with the lead in....."back then".....compared to today's environment killing products...plastic water bottles by the trillions....plastic containers for everything that is sold at ANY fast food place generating multi trillions of tons of pollutants to produce and contaminating the earth upon disposal......plastic grocery bags VS plastic, ditto previous statement....and on and on.

The scariest part is the attitude of the believers of policies and programs like green this or that or global warming or cooling or what ever the direction the wind blows on it........they have no concept of what has been done to degrade our planet. They remind me of those who paint over something rusted and broken and are led to believe what a good job they did or are doing.

Yeah when all of us from the back then generation are gone and this new generation has today's polluting lifestyle thinking they are doing good and feeling good about it....this old planet does not stand a chance.

[BarryRX]

One of those nostalgic laments for the good old days, full of finger-wagging chastisement for ungrateful whippersnappers, popped up in my in-basket the other day.

This fable begins with a young cashier snippily telling an older woman she should bring her own grocery bags because the plastic ones aren’t good for the environment. The older woman replies with a crabby catalogue of how much greener the cashier’s elders were back when they “didn’t do the green thing.”

At risk of being declared a traitor to my (age) class, I thought I’d deconstruct it. So here are the self-congratulatory fable’s main points followed by the facts in italics:

1. A wise elder generation returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to be washed sterilized and refilled. Inference: irresponsible young people like our symbolic cashier hypocritically sacrificed sustainability for recycling by lazily embracing disposable plastic jugs and cardboard cartons while complaining about plastic bags.

Fact: Milk bottles were phased out by the same generation that in this case criticizes disposable containers. This began in 1964 as a public health measure amid mounting concerns over sanitation and the difficulty of mass sterilization of bottles by dairies. You can still have your milk delivered in a re-usable bottle today but it will cost you about twice the price of a disposable container. There is a movement calling for a return to refillable containers for milk and beverages. It is driven largely by young people — like the metaphorical cashier dissed in the fable.

2. Back then, groceries came in brown paper bags that were reused for numerous things including covers for schoolbooks. This ensured public property was not defaced with inane scribbling. Inference: Sanctimonious young people push reusable shopping bags when paper bags are already reusable. Kids with no respect for public property deface their school books whereas their responsible grandparents were careful to mark only the brown paper wrappings salvaged from grocery bags.

Fact: You can still get your groceries bagged in paper, even in stores where they make you pay for plastic and encourage sturdy reusable bags. Paper grocery bags were invented around 1870. The plastic grocery bag, on the other hand, was invented by the very generation for which this fable purports to speak. The plastic bag was introduced in 1950 – if you’re under 62 you weren’t even alive when that happened. But it was enthusiastically embraced by the same generation that conceived the baby boom and which now complains about Boomers and their plastic bags.

As for the defacement of school books: before me, as I write, are several from the 1920s that passed through the hands of at least three successive schoolgirls. The first, a text which from 1929 to 1933 belonged in sequence to Winnie, Hazel and Mildred Davey of Magee Secondary, is well illustrated with jokes, witty teenage notes, and even a charming drawing of a delighted young woman apparently about to be smooched by a handsome chap. Above is doodled “Ah! ‘Tis love!” Oh, those old devils, what they secretly got up to in the back row behind the brown paper wrappers!

3. We walked up stairs because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. Inference: Unlike those lazy, car-mad youngsters who won’t climb a flight of stairs, we preferred walking to driving.

Fact: The modern safety elevator was invented in 1857 and installed in a frenzy of market growth – 2,000 per cent by 1873 – primarily because it offered a solution to a huge problem. The elevator meant cities could grow vertically, increasing density and reducing the reliance on horse transportation. Turns out the good old days before the car were a fly-infested, disease-ridden urban nightmare of horse manure. In New York and London, horses defecated 622 million kilograms on the streets each year. Perhaps that’s why our grandparents, once the car had been invented, bought 115.8 million vehicles between 1931, when the U.S. population numbered 124 million, and 1967, when it was 198 million — and the first baby boomers were old enough to buy their own cars. That averages 1.6 cars bought for every new person joining the population over those years. Who went car crazy, again? Meanwhile, the elevator transformed the urban landscape as high rises replaced walk-ups and skyscrapers replaced high rises in the early 20th century. The escalator evolved from a turn of the 19th century amusement park ride and developed in tandem with the elevator, entering wide use starting in 1920. Seems the seniors couldn’t abandon the stairs fast enough.

4. Back then, we washed baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling dryer.

Fact: The first disposable diapers came to market in 1942. They went to mass market in 1948, coinciding — surprise! — with the first births of the baby boom. That young cashier’s grandmother’s generation embraced disposables in huge numbers. It’s the environmentally-concerned young women of today who champion reusable cloth diapers– although even among them, the jury is still out on whether the benefits of washables are as clearcut as enthusiasts argue.

The electric clothes dryer was invented in the early 20th-century by a farmer sick of wet clothes freezing on the line during prairie winters. His automated drum dryer went to market in 1938 and the rest, as they say, is history. By 1950, sales were 60,000 a year. Our cashier’s grandmothers thought the electric dryer an indispensable idea. This fable must have been written by a man.

5. Back then, we had one TV, not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. We used a push mower. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club.

Fact: That old 19-inch cathode ray tube TV with the awful, flickering, snowy, blue and grey picture used three times as much power as the thin LED models that provide stunning high definition images in full colour today. People today still don’t have a TV in every room. Canadians average 1.8 TV sets per household. The electric blender was first marketed in 1922 and by 1950 at least a million households in North America had one. The mixer preceded the blender. It was invented in 1908. It was so popular that even in the depths of the Great Depression, 300,000 units a year were sold by the leading mixer company. The gasoline-powered lawn mower was brought to market in 1921 and by 1950 more than a million a year were being sold. The history of the public gymnasium dates from ancient Greece but in North America, it first took off as a mass market phenomenon in 1947, just when people born in the 1922 were turning 25 and conceiving the baby boom.

6. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen and we replaced razor blades instead of tossing the razor.

Fact: Paper cups were introduced in 1907 in response to growing public health concerns about communicable diseases from public drinking sources. Consumption of commercial bottled water dates from the early 1800s. The first popular brands in the 19th century were Perrier, San Pellegrino and Evian. In Canada, commercially bottled water has been sold for a century. So it’s not our metaphorical young cashier’s generation that’s responsible for the rise of paper cups and bottled water and the decline of drinking fountains, it’s her great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents that are to blame. By the way, it’s young people who promote the sensible drinking of tap water and carrying it in refillable stainless steel bottles. As for refilling pens – the first patent on the non-refillable ballpoint was issued in 1888 but it didn’t reach the mass market until RAF aircrews discovered it worked better than fountain pens at high altitude. Ballpoints went to mass market in 1945 and quickly dominated. Fountain pens reinvented themselves as executive status symbols. As for razors, disposable blades displaced the reusable straight razor during the First World War when the safety razor was adopted by the U.S. army, which bought millions. The first electric razor was patented in 1928.

7. Back then people took the street car or a bus and rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

Fact: People used public transit less back in the day than they do now. In 1923, 12 per cent of public transit was by train; in 2010, it was 34 per cent. Four per cent took the bus in 1923; by 2010 it was 51.4 per cent. As for riding bicycles, the great cycling boom began in 1960. At its peak, sales topped 17 million units, most of which were to new cyclists. Today, it’s young people who predominate in riding to school and to work – and they are activists, demanding bicycle lanes and paths that make their commutes safer. It’s older drivers, who have no intention of abandoning their cars, who put up the biggest resistance – witness the bike lane wars in Vancouver.

8. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.

Fact: The mass electrification of society was launched with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1935 during the Great Depression. Within two years, 1.5 million homes had been electrified and by the 1950s virtually every household was on the grid. The average house size in which the grumpy 85-year-old seniors of this piece were raised by their own parents was 91.3 square metres; the average size of the house those kids bought or built for themselves between 1950 and 1970 grew to 139.5 square metres and they filled their new houses with new electrical appliances. The 1950s launched the era of the electric range, refrigerator, washing machine, TV sets, phonographs, electric mixers, coffee makers, and even the rare microwave oven. One outlet per room couldn’t handle that suite of appliances – and didn’t.

9. And, finally, we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

Fact: Despite protestations to the contrary, seniors have always taken an enthusiastic liking to “computerized gadgets” like the smart phone. In 2011, 483,600 seniors owned an iPad. Seniors spend an average of 33.7 hours per week online – that is 1.5 hours more than the average for young people aged 18-24. Furthermore, 52 per cent of people aged 50 or older use smart phones to get mobile information and 30 per cent use them to check the weather and — Oh my goodness! — find a local restaurant.

Love it! I would also add to the folks who miss the good old days before the "tree huggers" came along, take a look at early pictures of places like Pittsburgh where you couldn't see the sky at noon time because the pollution was so bad, or the Cuyahoga river catching fire. I think we all tend to have selective memories. We remember the good things about the "good old days" and forget the bad things.

[Chi-Town]

Love it! I would also add to the folks who miss the good old days before the "tree huggers" came along, take a look at early pictures of places like Pittsburgh where you couldn't see the sky at noon time because the pollution was so bad, or the Cuyahoga river catching fire. I think we all tend to have selective memories. We remember the good things about the "good old days" and forget the bad things.

My father would talk about the good old days when he could get a hot dog and see a movie for a quarter. Of course, that was during the Great Depression, but that thought escaped him.

[CFrance]

Love it! I would also add to the folks who miss the good old days before the "tree huggers" came along, take a look at early pictures of places like Pittsburgh where you couldn't see the sky at noon time because the pollution was so bad, or the Cuyahoga river catching fire. I think we all tend to have selective memories. We remember the good things about the "good old days" and forget the bad things.

I agree with you, BarryRX and don't have "selective memory" about Pittsburgh in "the good old days." I was there from 1947-1984 and back again in 2010-2012. The difference is amazing. It's now a place you want to come back to.

I can't believe that the next generation will not make things better.

[TheVillageChicken]

When they ask me paper or plastic, I tell them it doesn't matter because I am bi-sacksual.

[buggyone]

**Being*Green*Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in its day.*`Back then’, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling's. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.`Back then’, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.*But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.*But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.***We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to **** us off... especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

Just how old do you think we are? Most of us have used the modern things most of our lives. One electrical outlet per room?? Refilled pens with ink from a bottle?? Washed diapers?? I don't think so!

[billethkid]

Pittsburgh MAY be a good example of something bad in the good old days that is no longer evident today.....because one can see and/or smell the difference!?!

What most do not realize (or care) is that our throw away society has a much bigger impact on the environment and the evidence is not readily seeable/smellable/etc. Like the ever increasing energy consumption to produce plastic bottles of all types. And then again the impact on the environment to dispose of the plastic throw away bottles/containers.

If people were really serious about waving the green flag they would be doing something about plastic bags and plastic bottles and their impact on the environment. That is not likely to happen as doing so will inconvenience the flag waver, therefore it does not get the deserved attention.

We are a two faced society when it comes to those things that impact on ones self!!!!!

Do some homework on throw away plastics and the impacts. It starts as oil in the ground, then significant energy to get the oil to a plastic and then the myriad impacts from the discarded containers.

[Villageshooter]

used to go to piggly-wiggly and test the tubes for the tv,, now we get a new one because we like the remote for the newest model flat screen!

[mixsonci]

Just how old do you think we are? Most of us have used the modern things most of our lives. One electrical outlet per room?? Refilled pens with ink from a bottle?? Washed diapers?? I don't think so!

I never refilled pens with ink from a bottle, but I certainly washed diapers. Pampers were just starting to make their way onto the market and they were frowned upon and the general consensus was that only lazy people would use them on their babies. My son is now 43 and I washed his cloth diapers (in a washing machine) and dried them on the line and I took pride in that, they spelled so fresh and clean. But I also have no problem with people using pampers today, it's technology and progress and you have to have that to move forward and in today's hurried society people don't have time to do things the old fashioned way and shouldn't have to. We've all had our modern conveniences and wave of the future technology during our prime time, even the tiny screen TV was a big deal at one point in time.

[Topspinmo]

[QUOTE=billethkid;880696]Pittsburgh MAY be a good example of something bad in the good old days that is no longer evident today.....because one can see and/or smell the difference!?!

really no difference in the world. If just moved to China with all the blue collar jobs. I guess as long as it is far away that makes it good in Pittsburg. You know there still could be blue collar jobs without the smog and pollution, but it was Cheaper to move the company than fix the problem for the 1 percenter's. That would of been something, fixed the environment and retain jobs . But, Greed got in the way.

[CFrance]

Actually, Pittsburgh cleaned up its pollution problem well before the steel industry abandoned the US.

[Cisco Kid]

...

[Vernster]

Why doesn't Fl. have a deposit on all bottles and cans ? It would seem that the state could use the money and kids and homeless could get xtra cash and help with the litter problem.

I do remember doing and using all things mentioned in " the being green" article. I even used an ink well in school before I obtained a refillable ink pen. But, I always remember returning bottles and cans for 2 cents a piece while growing up in Massachusetts.

[CFrance]

Why doesn't Fl. have a deposit on all bottles and cans ? It would seem that the state could use the money and kids and homeless could get xtra cash and help with the litter problem.

I do remember doing and using all things mentioned in " the being green" article. I even used an ink well in school before I obtained a refillable ink pen. But, I always remember returning bottles and cans for 2 cents a piece while growing up in Massachusetts.
In other states we've lived in, it was the grocer lobbies who kept the bottle deposit program at bay. They didn't want to provide the time, space, logistics & $ to have to run the program.

[CFrance]

I never refilled pens with ink from a bottle, but I certainly washed diapers. Pampers were just starting to make their way onto the market and they were frowned upon and the general consensus was that only lazy people would use them on their babies. My son is now 43 and I washed his cloth diapers (in a washing machine) and dried them on the line and I took pride in that, they spelled so fresh and clean. But I also have no problem with people using pampers today, it's technology and progress and you have to have that to move forward and in today's hurried society people don't have time to do things the old fashioned way and shouldn't have to. We've all had our modern conveniences and wave of the future technology during our prime time, even the tiny screen TV was a big deal at one point in time.
I washed diapers too, in '73 and again in '78. Actually, the paper diapers back then (we used on vacation) ate holes in my boys' bums. Had to paint them with Desitin. I didn't like the crinkly sound of them walking around in paper diapers either, and especially didn't like the landfill issue.

I wonder... are paper diapers any more biodegradable now? My niece the sustainable architect won't buy much plastic baby gear items due to "off-gassing," yet she is using paper diapers. I don't understand it. She works, but she could have diaper service. I did that the first year for both babies. The cost was roughly the same as Pampers. After the first year
I washed them myself.